Emerging Tech

Police officers get their own private Facebook

One of the best video games of the Commodore 64 era was a robust little adventure game called Neuromancer. Set in the future, you play a hacker who can install task-specific memory chips inside his head. When you question a cop, you hear nothing but gibberish in reply until you install the Coptalk-skill chip to makes sense of what he says. The joke was that cops speak their own language, known only to others who are also "on the job."

That same Coptalk principle is at work with the creation of BlueLine, a social network designed just for police officers and members of law enforcement. It's free to join, but unlike the Neuromancer game, you don’t just need to talk like a cop, you actually have to be one. Specifically, you have to register with a valid department-issued email address.

The site is the brainchild of William Bratton, who served as the chief of police for Los Angeles and the commissioner of police for both Boston and New York City. He raised $1.4 million for the effort.

Some of the features of BlueLine include interactive video chat rooms that support up to 12 officers, screen grabs, photo sharing and instant messaging.

Bratton told Mashable that BlueLine is a safe place for cops to share everything from tips to stories to photos. "We're not looking to be Facebook in the sense of posting family pics," Bratton said. "Instead, the goal is to share water-cooler type info, like tips on gear, policing and cop culture."

If you speak Coptalk, you can sign up immediately and begin swapping stories with your fellow warriors in blue.